


A Drop of Honey

by gardnerhill



Category: Basil of Baker Street - All Media Types, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 17:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15344706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: The mouse that roared.





	A Drop of Honey

Dr. Dawson did not show up for luncheon; Basil shrugged it away, attributed it to a prolonged call on a patient and returned to his experiments.

But the noise and chaos that grew and built till it roared outside – screaming horses, honking motorcars, police sirens, shouting humans, outcries from all the animals and birds – could not be shrugged off.

Worried, Basil threw on his coat and headed to the door. How would David get home in this confusion?

Just as he opened the door he faced his mate, key raised to unlock. And Dawson looked as if he'd been run over by everything Basil now saw as well as heard clanging and yelling and thundering down Baker Street.

"My dear chap!"

Basil helped his bedraggled friend through the door and into his chair, and assessed him. Clothing mussed and torn, hair and even fur rumpled, but no major injuries apart from a few abrasions. A look of deepest chagrin on his face. Still clutching his doctor's bag; Basil gently pried Dawson's digits off the handle to set it down. The closed door only muffled the noise and mess on the street. "It's a wonder you made it home in that melee," he said.

Dawson nodded, and dropped his head. "Yes. Sorry about that."

Basil's whiskers twitched sideways but he otherwise made no expression. He did a little deducing. "My dear doctor," he said quietly. "Are you responsible for that hullabaloo?"

"I am."

Basil of Baker Street was not only a smart mouse but a wise one. His next move was to head to the cabinet and pour a snifter of brandy. He returned and put it in Dawson's paw, then pulled up his own chair and sat down, and waited.

Dawson took a fortifying measure of the restorative, took a deep breath, and smoothed back his hair. "Basil. How well do you know Indonesian folklore?"

Basil frowned at the _non sequitur_. "I know _pembunuhan_ and _darah_ , the words for 'murder' and 'blood.' Nothing much else about the East Indies."

Dawson nodded heavily. "Well, there's a story about how a kingdom is destroyed because of a drop of honey. The honey drips from a hive onto the road; a fly lands to eat the honey, and the fly is eaten by a lizard, which in turn is eaten by a cat, which is killed by a dog, which is killed by a bigger dog, which leads to the dogs' owners fighting till everyone in the street, then the town, then the kingdom, are involved. Well, old mouse, today _I_ was the drop of honey."

Basil leaned forward with his fingers steepled, still not saying a word.

David took another draught of brandy, then lifted his head to meet his friend's eyes. "I. I gave a plaster to a beggar."

Basil cocked his head and arched one eyebrow.

Dawson smiled wearily. "I know you're trying to deduce just how _that_ turned into _this_ ," with a wave in the direction of the noise outside, only now starting to die down. "Well, this is the chain of events.

"I was coming back from my rounds. I was famished, looking forward to a good lunch at home with you. I was at the York intersection, and got asked for a coin by a beggar in the alley there. I turn to face the mouse – poor blighter's got a nasty gash on his back and a badly-set leg, probably got caught in machinery at the brewery looking for supper – and see other beggars in that alley too. Mice mostly, a few starlings, a pigeon, a rat. Some had open wounds, the pigeon had a bad foot, the rat had an infected incisor, and … I had my doctor's bag. So…" Dawson shrugged with a smile.

So he'd stopped to give the beggars something better – bandages, antiseptic, pain-medicine, stitches, pulling the rat's bad tooth – and still passing a few coins to them. No wonder he'd been late. Basil nodded matter-of-factly, but inside he was glowing. David Dawson's heart was as big as the rest of him.

"All well and good," Dawson continued. "Well, I was _famished_ by the time I was done, and tired, and hot, and the traffic was ghastly and the noise, but I was just a few blocks short of home and a good cup of tea after a rough morning." His voice changed to anger. "And who comes up to me with his paw out but Tom!"

Click. Basil's ears went back for a second like an angry cat's. "Two-Eyed Tom? The rust-coloured con-mouse with the eye-patch and false wooden leg?" The scourge of the local train-stations. This was not his usual patch – he'd probably been run out of Paddington.

"Perfect name for that fraud. Yes." Dawson had the same look of contempt as Basil.

Oh yes. A healthy grifter like Tom would have hung back while actual invalids and wounded were tended by the doctor.

"I offered to give him a medical exam, and he got pissy with me. 'Don't want yer damn' pills, quack, I want to eat! Or don't you give a damn for a poor soldier what's got wounded serving 'is Queen an' mousedom?'" Dawson's face was full of rage. "To ME he said that!"

To Major Dawson, who had personally tended brave rodents wounded in actual combat.

Dawson nodded as if Basil had spoken. "Yes. That's exactly when I snapped. I turned into my old Netley drill-sergeant – got right in Tom's lying face and rattled off my name, rank and serial number and demanded the name of his unit. At the top of my lungs." Dawson grinned. "It was worth it to see the look of terror on that sniveling coward when he realised he'd accosted an actual soldier. The other beggars, the real ones who'd been happy for my help, started after Tom to give him a thrashing." Then his face fell. "And that's when Tom panicked and squealed and ran like a coward – his wooden leg fell away and suddenly he had all four limbs again. Eye-patch fell off too and oh look, two good eyes."

"It was a blessed miracle," Basil said dryly. "Providence be praised. And then?"

Dawson slumped. "And then. Tom ran out of the alley and onto the sidewalk and bowled over a few other mousey chaps, who started yelling and scuffling with all of us – they clearly thought we were a crime-gang. And that caught the eyes of the humans and they yelled to see mice and rats where they were walking, and Tom dashed across the road and spooked a cab-horse who screamed and reared up and crashed into another cab-horse right behind it, and both of them panicked and ran up against a parked motorcar on the side of the road and smashed their traces and one cab-wheel, and the idiot human hadn't put the brake on so the motorcar started rolling without a driver and hit even more carts and an autobus, and then the pigeon flew out of the alley trying to find Tom and startled a whole flock of pigeons into taking off and flying into humans' faces and other vehicles. That's when the human police wagon came up to see what was…"

Basil doubled over, holding his sides, laughing helplessly. Home, safe, tended, and finally able to see the funny side of the misadventure, Dawson dropped his head and started shaking with laughter too.

Basil walked over and kissed his mate's forehead, stroking his rumpled fur back into place. "Poor old Dawson. If you'd only snubbed that beggar you'd have been finishing luncheon about now."

"There's a saying about good deeds and punishment, isn't there?" the doctor sighed. "Nothing a wash and a plate of Mrs. Judson's carrot stew won't fix, fortunately."

"Both of which are on offer. And if nothing else…" Basil listened outside as he collected a plate of orange stew from the warming hob, adding a few cheese crumpets to the tray, and smiled at the sound of a flock of cursing pigeons swooping around the block. "I do believe you have singlehandedly stopped Two-Eyed Tom from encroaching on this neighbourhood ever again."

"It's a blessed miracle," Dawson replied. "Providence be praised."

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2018 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #18, **No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.** Consequences happen.


End file.
